The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-06-19
THE REAL ESTATE CAMPAIGN.
Speculation in Houses and Lots on a
Rio Room

messed a remarkable revival of interest in
real estate here Half dozen years of
apathy have passed away, and spectators
who formerly dabbled in stocks, oil and
wheat are now trying real estate as an easy
road to fortune. The future of New York
seems to be assured. Its trade increases as
population increases. Rich men from the
West are constantly settling here and build
ing palaces The total area of Manhattan
island, on which most of the city stands, is
only about twenty two square miles, and of
this at least one-half is taken up by the
streets and parks. This leaves only few
thousand lots to be operated in, and the
most of these are held by wealthy persons.
The annexed district in Westminster county,
now known as the Twenty third and TWEEN
ty-fourth wards, has also felt the speculative
impetus. Six new parks will be provided
IN this new district and the population of
these two wards, which few years ago
were composed of struggling county towns,
is now fully 10000.
The passion for display in New York real
estate has greatly increased, and larger lots
are used for the mansions of successful
traders and others This, of course. in
creases the demand for lots, and they are
being sold very rapidly. 1t was by real es-
tate investments, it will be remembered,
that John Jacob Aston greatly increased
his fortune. The nucleus of his vast DOS
sessions came from the fur trade hut fifteen
years after landing in New York, he be-
gan to invest in lots beyond the populated
section of the island, and his descendants
have continued this policy. Wherever
vacant tract has been obtaiuable at low
price they have bought it. They own about
800 houses, and do not insure them, as it
would involve less expense to lose O house
now and then than to pay for the insurance.
They have been generous at times in their
contributions to religious and charitable
enterprises, but have always refused to sub
scribe to neighborhood improvements. Ii
there is an old tumble down house
close to the property, or ON it, they never
subscribe a penny to have it taken away,
nor will they subscribe for the erection of
church on favorable corner Of the proper
ty or i'll the neighborh1od. They simply
say that in time all these Improvements will
come without expense to them. They take
scrupulous care of their houses. Nothing is
allowed to decay or remain out of order
They seldom sell any of their real estate.
Old John Jacob Aston, largely through his
real estate investments, was worth SIS, 000,-
600 when he died in 1s47. This seemed
larger fortune then than double that amount
would to-day, because there were fewer
rich men. The Goelets, the LorillardS, the
Stuyvcsants, the Rhinelanders and other
wealthy families followed John Jacob AS
tors policy in the matter of real estate and
have amassed great fortunes partly by this
means. The 300 acres below Chambers
street seemed destined to remain the most
valuable 500 acres in the world, and these
rich families are constantly purchas-
ing property in that section
Buildings there must have ele-
yators and rise to a height of eight
or nine stories in some localities or the rent
would not yield Il fair return on the invest
ment Lots in the neighborhood of Wall
street cost in some cases from 5000, 900 to
100000. The large plot occupied by the
Mills building cost 81 900 600. and the build
ing itself nearly 81, O00, 900 more The centre
of real esta te values in New York is in the
neighborhood of the Stock Exchange or
about the corner of Wall street and
Broadway The east side of New York on
the island is pretty well built up, and only
above the Harlem is there much room for
real estate improvement. Sometimes, how-
ever, property is held for years in odd hooks
of the city without the least attempt at i'm
provement. The old Rutgers mansion, with
two acres, stood ON the east side of town, q
little below Grand street for years, when
the ground was worth from $4,000 to 81, 900
a lot, thus representing about $780, 900 lying
idle. The original Rutgers was a ricn
merchant in the days of the revolution. On
the west side, at the corner Of Blocker and
Charles streets, the Van Ness mansion stood
up to about 1874 Van Ness was man of
means, who disapproved of new-fangled
ideas in New York, and occupied the house
in which he had lived for many years up to
the day of his death, calmly ignoring the
surging sea of population and change around
him and raising cabbages and potatoes in
his extensive grounds Counting the loss of
interest on his money, the potatoes cost him
at least $50 barrel and his cabbages S. or
So head. When he died the green old
oasis in the stony desert of the lower west
side of New York was changed by the en-
teiprising heirs into brick and mortar as in
the twinkling of an eye.
Spectators in real estate in years gone by
made some curious mistakes in guessing
which way fashion would drift Many
shrewd mercha nts, for instance, thought
that Second avenue would be the fashion
able thoroughfare, but Fifth avenue threw
1t into comparative obscurity. Others
thought that West Fourteenth street would
be the favored haunt of wealth and fashion,
and one of the most pretentious houses built
i'll New York until within comparatively
few years was the Douglass mansion ON
Fourteenth street, between Sixth and Sew
enth avenues. The house has a frontage
and depth Of seventy-fve feet, and at the
rear there is an addition covering three lots.
The ceilings are eighteen feet high, and the
Udln nail ~ as WlOS dS SOUlS VI puc Oiu
streets of lower New York or the older part
of Boston. 1t was abandoned
as a residence years ago, was used
for time as the Metropolitan Museum of
Art and is now q furniture warehouse. The
fashionable shopping district, however is
Just east of the old mansion, and it will yet
become very valuable property. At the
close of the war there was not single store
on Fourteenth street west Of Broadway.
1t is now the very centre of the shopping
district. Even Fifth avenue must bow its
head TO the rule of trade which is gradually
swallowing with greedy NAV the stately
brownstone mansions once the home Of
wealth and fashion Business is creeping
steadily up the famous thoroughfare, bound
evidently for Fifty-ninth street, and the
palaces Of the Vanderbilts and of Stewart
may yet become warehouses, trade turning
ON its kings and harassing them with
locust plague of business enterprise.
The Lenox family own a large amount of
property on that avenue. The elder
Lenox was u dry goods merchant, who
died in 1929, leaving property then esti-
mated at $l,000,000 to his two children,
James and Henrietta, neither Of whom were
ever married Each built a mansion in 1912
on Fifth avenue, at Twelfth street, then
well up town. and there they lived in sepa-
rate houses in solitary state. They inherited
two plots of ground on Fifth avenue, one OF
eight or nine acres at the lower end of that
thoroughfare, and the other of some twenty
acres at Sixtieth street. The original Lenc Z